The Code of Honor

CHAPTER 4“Zero-Day” Humanity and Accountability

“I will strive to recognize, take ownership, and appropriately communicate my mistakes and exercise patience toward others who make errors.”

– The Cybersecurity Code of Honor

“Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts.”

– Nikki Giovanni

“It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

Matt is a security engineer for one of the world's most widely used fintech platforms. He has been with the company for nearly four years and quickly worked his way up through the ranks from analyst to engineer because of his coding background and coding proficiency. He is driven and bright and is currently up for another promotion, specifically because of a new security program that his team designed and implemented last quarter. Days ago, Rima, a newer member of Matt's design team, discovered what she believed was a flaw in their new program. The flaw seemed to be the result of simple errors the team made in the development process. When she presented it to Matt, he quickly decided it wasn't significant enough to raise any alarms. He dismissed it as a minor defect that likely wouldn't be exploited and could be addressed sometime down the road. After all, his team had already been recognized at last week's company meeting for their innovation, and program implementation was already full steam ahead.

Bad Decisions ...